Menu does not display value list in MacOS

[d94dsj]

In MacOS it seems that you cannot get the value list that is attached to a field formatted as "menu" to display, unless you explicitly click into the field. In does not display if you tab into it, and into doesn't display if you go to the field through a Set Field script step.

If you format the field as a list, however, it displays the attached value list.

But, in Windows, a field formatted as a menu, shows its value list if you either tab to it, or use the Set Field script step to go to it.

Is there anyone who knows why this is so? And could you make the menu value list display perhaps through the use of AppleScript?

Thanks for any help,

Daniel

[Ocean West]

It's been this way on the Mac since I can remember.

[Vaughan]

That's the way menus work on MacOS -- part of the interface standard. I always use lists.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

quote:

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Originally posted by DanielS:

And could you make the menu value list display perhaps through the use of AppleScript?

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A value list can be made to display from an AppleScript by declaring a variable, instantiating it with the "choices" event of a global field that has the value lsit attached (all invisible to the user), and then displaying that value as a "choose from list" event. You can block null choices, you can permit only one chouce, or multiple ones.

THis is actually a very handy trick, as it always dynamically updates. You can alos filter it using Conditional Value Lists, but you'd best know how to do that.

See the article on CVL's on the FMI web site.

HTH

Old Advance Man

[d94dsj]

Hi,

Sorry for my late reply for this one, I haven't checked into FM forums for a while...

>>Vaughan

Sometimes it's nice to have all the values to choose from at once - with a scroll bar you would have to scroll through them! And in my perticular scenario, a menu was required to perform a "trick".

I wanted to trick FM into running a script when clicking into a field formatted as a pop-up menu. The pop-up menu field is also formatted as a button which starts a script like this:

Goto Field [TheField]

Loop

Pause/Resume[0:00]

Exit Loop If[status(CurrentFieldName) <> TheField)

End Loop

Perform script steps based on user's selection in TheField...

This works on the Windows platform, since the pop-up menu expands when you perform the Goto Field step. In MacOS, you would have to click twice in a row (quite fast), to make it work.

>>OAM

I couldn't find a "choose from list" event in the FileMaker Applescript dictionary, but maybe you didn't mean that the list would display in FileMaker itself? (I've never written an AppleScript before, but I am a programmer...)

After doing some more testing I found out that the above "trick" does not work if you are in a list view (i.e. "show as list"). I tried toggling the mode in the script, but it wasn't very professional looking with the screen flashing, and the status functions for finding out what mode you're in are new to FM 5.5 - and my client has 5.0.

So, in the end, I didn't use this "trick". I guess the only way to go if you want a script to trigger after selecting a value in a list/menu is using one of the plug-ins available for this...

Many thanks anyway...

/Daniel